Saudi prince is buyer of record-breaking $450 million da Vinci

Attendants last month at a New York City art sale gasped after an anonymous buyer put up a baffling $450.3 million for Leonardo da Vinci’s “Salvator Mundi” — making it the most expensive painting ever sold at auction.

For weeks, the buyer’s identity remained unknown but on Wednesday, records uncovered by the New York Times finally revealed Bader bin Abdullah bin Mohammed bin Farhan al-Saud as the affluent art aficionado.

Bader, a Saudi Arabian prince from a remote branch of the royal family, coughed up the record-shattering sum for the centuries-old painting of Jesus Christ in order to hang it in the newly opened branch of the Louvre in Abu Dhabi. It is the mysterious prince’s first high-profile art purchase.

Dozens of Saudi elites and even some royal family members have been imprisoned at upscale hotels in the country for several weeks amid Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s ostensible crusade against perceived self-enrichment in the conservative kingdom.